Talk:Ben Swann/Archives/2017/December

Is section "Russia-United States relations" WP:OR?
The section "Russia-United States relations" of this article relies (with the exception of the Daily Beast) exclusively on primary sources; namely, articles by Swann himself (Edit - including one, apparently, from InfoWars?!). The problem I see is that a WP editor has made an independent determination of the salience of these specific articles. To elaborate: DarjeelingTea (talk) 15:21, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The sentence "Swann speculated on RT America and in an InfoWars article that the resignation of RT anchor Liz Wahl in protest was a “stunt coordinated with a Neo-Con Think-Tank". seems perfectly fine because a secondary RS (the Daily Beast) has identified the salience and importance of Swann's writing in this instance.
 * However, in the sentences "Swann has hosted on his personal website posts with headlines such as "Putin: Russian military not threatening anybody, we are protecting our borders" and "Putin demonized for thwarting neocon plan for global domination." One such post stated, "For it is a rule which invariably holds true – if the Western elites praise the leader of a foreign country it means he is doing something which is good for those elites and bad for his country. If he’s demonized, as Putin is, it’s the other way round.", the only sources are the original articles themselves. A Wikipedia editor has, therefore, made an independent determination that these articles are representative of the body of Swann's writing and merit inclusion over any number of other articles presumably present on his site. In other words, a WP editor has undertaken a media audit which is, speaking from professional experience, an analytically complex exercise that can only be classified as original research.
 * There's nothing wrong with scattered content based on primary sources. The OR policy just directs us to be cautious basing "large passages" on them. I generally try to avoid having whole sections or stretches of multiple paragraphs based on primary sources. A couple of sentences like this seems more than acceptable. We're allow to make editorial decisions about what primary sources are more noteworthy than others. We perform that kind of analysis all the time. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:56, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * What type of approach did you use in your analysis to determine the articles you selected were representative of Swann's whole body of work? Stratified sampling with constructed weeks or simple random sampling? And was your content coding done manually or with coding software? If manually, how many coders did you use for your intercoder reliability testing?
 * These are, of course, rhetorical questions, as I don't think any processes conventionally used in content analysis occurred in deciding which articles of his to highlight. The reason I ask is that I just did a quick perusal and found a couple articles in which he's critical of Russia. If we're going to make editorial judgments to emphasize some of a BLPs writings and de-emphasize others, those judgments should be based on how such emphasis occurs in RS (which is why the first selection, sourced to the Daily Beast is okay), not our personal preference of how we want to present the subject of the BLP (which is why the second selection, IMO, is problematic). We should not take it upon ourselves to craft an identity for a BLP subject. To do so moves us from editor to publicist.
 * Anyway, I'm not going to WP:DEADHORSE this because I don't think it's a huge issue, I'm just concerned that BLPs about - ahem - "questionable" persons like Swann tend to get caught in a cycle of exuberance in which we start to feel it's our duty to humanity to ensure every reader immediately and unambiguously "get it" and we end-up with Frankenstein-esque BLPs as a result. The fact he's won a major award for reporting on RV fires and yet we don't have a section on RV fires in the "Views and reports" section underscores this article as a crusade rather than a biography, IMO. DarjeelingTea (talk) 19:11, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * What would we put in a section on RV fires? I did a search and couldn’t find anything other than he got an award for it, and that’s already in the article. Objective3000 (talk) 19:54, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Why wouldn't we? The section is called "Views and reports." It's (a) a report and, (b) he got a regional Emmy for it. DarjeelingTea (talk) 20:16, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I didn't say why would we. I said what would we put in such a section. I can find no reliable sources that say anything about it that is not already in the article. In fact, it's mentioned twice. Objective3000 (talk) 20:25, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * We could say Swan reported on a RV fire for KFOX-TV in El Paso's Castner Heights neighborhood in 2005. which is as much content as Swann hosted a segment on WGCL-TV titled “5 Problems with CIA Claim That Russia Hacked DNC/Podesta Emails.” - a sentence to which we've already devoted an entire section.
 * The guy has worked in journalism for the last 15 years and went off the deep-end in the last 12 months. He has a corpus of 15 years of work, but our "news and reports" section only includes the most recent 12 months of his wacky CTer stuff. The tinfoil hat stuff is great entertainment and makes the article more interesting, I admit, but it's not our job to make BLPs fun and sexy. Anyway, like I said, I don't wanna WP:DEADHORSE this, so I'm going to head out and let the regulars here sort things. There are definitely valuable perspectives coming from all sides. Good luck! DarjeelingTea (talk) 20:16, 17 March 2017 (UTC)


 * DarjeelingTea, when you ask, "What kind of approach did you use, ... ?" I hope you're not referring to me personally. I didn't add that content. But I see nothing wrong with exercising a little editorial discretion and highlighting reports that seem particularly noteworthy, as long as it's done in a neutral manner that doesn't tilt things toward a particular agenda. We have no WP:OR-based obligation to treat all views and reports exactly equally or to apply some sort of quantitative or objective criteria. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:22, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

BLP violation
It is a BLP violation for us not to note that pizzagate is a conspiracy theory; to describe it as a reasonable theory implies that Clinton, Podesta, and the owners of a DC Pizzeria etc may be pedos, which is unbelievably irresponsible and defamatory.

Let's examine the four pieces of authentic "evidence" that have been cited by the conspiracy theorists for the claims regarding pizzagate. (Many additional pieces of evidence have been forged, but I won't be getting into that):


 * There are clearly emails where Podesta and others use the word "pizza" as a code word for something else. It is hardly shocking that an aide to a Secretary of State and a presidential candidate needs to use code words in various emails. Moreover, there is zero evidence that "pizza" is in fact a code word for pedophila. This connection was made up by anonymous 4chan bloggers and, while Swann was dense enough to swallow it, RS have debunked it.


 * In one email released by Wikileaks, Podesta wrote to a female friend that taking his nieces and nephews swimming would provide 'plenty of entertainment' (yep, because anyone who finds the company of kids entertaining is a pedo).


 * Various emails reference Legends Pizza. This is hardly surprising, since it is a Democratic hangout, and Democratic officials regularly (and quite publicly) dine there. Occasionally, pizza is used as a code word in these notes. But again, the use of a code word by a top aide to someone who was expected to be the next POTUS is scarcely surprising.


 * There is a video in which a staff member of Legend's pizza (which is run by homosexual men) jubilantly yelled at one of the managers (who said he's "into men") "no, you're into boys!" The explanation given by the jovial heckler was that he was poking fun at the owner for being a 50-something man who dates 20-something guys. This explanation is deeply credible, considering that "boys" is slang for young men in the homosexual community, and also considering that the Pizza place posted the video to Facebook, which they never would have done if it contained their "admission" of pedophilia.

The Swann guy is a crank for falling for this conspiracy theory. I question whether he even deserves to b e called a journalist. Regardless, to protect the BLPs involved, we have to note (per all RS) that pizzagate is a discredited conspiracy theories. Steeletrap (talk) 19:09, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree with much of what you write here, but it does not justify the bulk of your recent edits. For instance, the fact that Swann did a weirdly supportive piece on the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, effectively lending it credence, in no way means that he believed the conspiracy theory, or that he was trying to promote it, let alone that he should be labeled as a conspiracy theorist in the first sentence of his article; nor is it a basis for renaming a section that lists his various notable views and reports as "Conspiracy theories and other views." Those are all non-neutral and BLP violations in my view. At least one other change you made was against consensus. You might not have noticed it because it's a bit buried, but in the section above called "Pizzagate," several editors discussed this at length and agreed that we should include some broad details of the types of "purported evidence" Swann mentioned in his segment; you deleted all of that. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:28, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * TLDR: Swann may be a crappy journalist, but he's still a journalist, most of his reports aren't about conspiracy theories, and the ones that are about conspiracy theories weren't explicitly done to promote the conspiracy theories. Therefore, we must treat him as a journalist who has on occasion done some controversial stories. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:30, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

, we are almost always on the same side of debates. Please stop, check the sources, and review the talk page consensus before replacing more verifiable content with non-verifiable content against consensus. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:51, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

peSandy Hook
This edit introduced a copyedit error. Needs to be fixed. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:38, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Purported evidence
You removed:

Supporters of the conspiracy theory claimed that the WikiLeaks-published Podesta emails, and certain pizza restaurants, and music bands used coded messages referring to sexual abuse of children. The Reality Check segment ended with Swann asking why law enforcement hadn't investigated the allegations.

and replaced it with:

In the piece, Swann lent credence to the conspiracy theory and dismissed media reports that it had been discredited. The Reality Check segment ended with a call for law enforcement to investigate the pizzeria conspiracy theorists allege to be the center of a pedophilia operation.

The old version was hashed out by a prior (and very recent) talk page consensus. The version you changed it to isn't supported by the cited source, which doesn't say that Swann dismissed any media reports. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:45, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Critics
You added:

Swann was widely criticized for lending credence to false allegations of pedophilia, especially after a man with an assault rifle invaded the D.C. Pizzeria Swann had implied was the nexus of Podesta's pedophilia ring. Amidst heavy criticism for his reporting, Swann closed his social media accounts.

citing this source. The source doesn't say Swann was widely or heavily criticized, and that language is weasel words to boot. The source also doesn't exactly say he was criticized for lending credence to the conspiracy theory, nor does it say that the closing of his social media accounts was in any way connected to the criticism. The source also says he was cheered by his supporters; omission of that balancing view (in the same source no less!) is non-neutral. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:52, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Vaccines
You removed:

Swann has expressed skepticism of media reports and public health officials' consensus that vaccines do not cause autism.

and replaced it with:

Swann has claimed that there is substantial evidence that vaccines cause autism, a claim dismissed as quackery and pseudoscience by the medical community.

citing these sources:, ,. The sources support the old version, not the new version you changed it to. The sources say vaccines do not cause autism. They do not say anyone has dismissed any claim as quackery and pseudoscience. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:57, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Steeletrap, if I were to write an op-ed piece on Swann, I might very well use the language of your edits. But, this is a BLP in an encyclopedia. I agree completely with DrF’s comments. Let’s stick to sources and avoid charged words like quackery and pseudoscience. Also, I’d suggest avoiding wholesale changes to controversial articles like this which have been built upon hard-fought consensus. Objective3000 (talk) 13:17, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

what the hell is with those edits? do what you guys want with the page, the glaring bias against Ben will make people ignore it. 104.33.114.195 (talk) 05:49, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

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